Description

Lowry Pei’s sensuous and uncanny novel charts the wild disintegration of a love-struck narrator who, after being left by his girlfriend and suffering a near-death experience, begins digging a large hole in his back yard. Compulsion propels Lucas deeper and deeper into a mythical realm where he encounters a number of otherworldly guides—an off-beat cast that includes a janitor, a tailor, and a mysterious woman named Alison who may just help him get where he needs to go. Pei’s first novel, Family Resemblances, was published by Random House in 1986. His story “The Cold Room” appeared in Best American Short Stories 1984, and “Naked Women” appeared in The American Story: The Best of Story Quarterly. He has published half a dozen short stories, essays, memoirs, and works of criticism, and reviewed books for The New York Times. He lives in Cambridge, MA and teaches writing at Simmons College.